Medical Speech Recognition Software Streamlines Workflow

Even though speech recognition or voice recognition systems are not new in the healthcare field, the importance and prevalence of the technology has increased in the medical practice in the recent years, especially with the introduction of healthcare information technology.


Speech Recognition for healthcare Providers

Speech and voice recognition software as the name implies, is a computer software which recognizes vice and converts speech to text.

In healthcare, speech recognition technology can be used in the front end just like in the back end.

In case it's used in the front end, the doctor dictates directly into the system through a microphone ( the quality of the microphone is significant so that none of the background voice is not transmitted and cause errors). The dictated text is displayed in the monitor in front of him/ her which he is able to edit it then and there using speech activated commands; and sign off the final document. There is no role of transcriptionist here and the report will be accessible to the patient immediately.

When is it implemented in the back-end, the dictated text is automatically send to the transcriptionist, who then edits it and sends it back to the doctor to sign off the report.

Speech recognitions software can be integrated into the electronic medical history (EMR) of the patient. Then the physician can dictate the patient's history and examination findings in real-time while examining a patient, record daily progress, discharge summary etc into the patient's EMR. Most medical voice recognition systems can be integrated into the EMR.

Radiology is additional department which benefits tremendously from this system. It streamlines the clinical workflow and improves communication. Radiologist can view patient's images and dictate the reports into the systems which can be reviewed and signed off the radiologist immediately or send off to the backend to be reviewed later. There is lesser report turnaround time and thus lesser patient waiting time.

Training to use the system is easy and thus the higher adoption rate and acceptance among healthcare providers - takes less time to train healthcare professionals on how to use the software and lesser time to train the software considering medical vocabulary, acronyms, accent etc.

Speech recognition software is particularly useful in busy practices which doesn't have access to transcription services were the physician has to type the reports himself.

Speech Recognition Companies

Some speech recognition software products and their vendors are:

1) Dragon Medical from Nuance Communications

2) Crescendo Speech Processing from Crescendo Systems

3) SpeechQ for Radiology from MedQuist

4) VoxReports from Atirix Medical Systems

5) 3M SyncStream Software from 3M Health Information Systems